Eric Holder to media: I get it

Holder is said to have expressed a willingness to revise investigation guidelines. | AP Photo

Over the one-hour meeting, Holder stressed that the Justice Department had conducted its investigations out of a regard for national security, and said reporters had been subpoenaed out of a genuine threat to national security, according to those present. But Holder also indicated that the decision to label Fox News reporter James Rosen as an “aider and abettor” in a criminal investigation wasn’t necessary.

Several news organizations boycotted the session, citing concerns with the provision that it be held on an off-the-record basis. The Associated Press, The New York Times, CNN, Fox News, NBC News, CBS News, Reuters, McClatchy, and The Huffington Post all passed on the meeting.

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In a statement, New York Times executive editor Jill Abramson said “it isn’t appropriate for us to attend an off the record meeting with the attorney general. Our Washington bureau is aggressively covering the department’s handling of leak investigations at this time.”

But other news organizations stood by their decision to attend the meeting, including POLITICO.

“As editor in chief, I routinely have off-the-record conversations with people who have questions or grievances about our coverage or our newsgathering practices,” Harris, who was invited to represent POLITICO at the meeting, said in an email. “I feel anyone—whether an official or ordinary reader—should be able to have an unguarded conversation with someone in a position of accountability for a news organization when there is good reason.”

ABC News, Bloomberg News, USA Today and the Los Angeles Times/Chicago Tribune also accepted the invitation and will attend a meeting on Friday.

Responding to the boycott earlier on Thursday, the White House said it was still “hopeful” and “optimistic” that news organizations would attend the meetings.

“We are genuinely interested in the input, the opinion, the advice of leaders of prominent media organizations,” White House deputy press secretary Josh Earnest told reporters aboard Air Force One . “We are hopeful and optimistic that we are going to find a way to get their input.”

When asked if the White House was involved in setting the off-the-record rules, Earnest declined to answer.

The meetings come in the wake of revelations about the Justice Department’s seizure of the phone records of several AP reporters and its targeting of Rosen, and are part of President Barack Obama’s announced review of the department’s existing guidelines governing investigations involving reporters.